


In Love's a Loathing

by burnt_august



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Family Loss, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, lol i know that's confusing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 11:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25968808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnt_august/pseuds/burnt_august
Summary: Though the strangest woman he's ever had the displeasure of meeting, Arthur Morgan befriends and vows to help Winn in her stubborn pursuit of frontier justice. As all things go, from one good deed springs all manner of trouble.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	1. All the Fineries of a Lady

Knee deep in mud, up to the neck in _shit—_ he can think of no better place than Valentine that speaks to the quandary in which they have found themselves. 

Sinking into the loose earth, burning and aching everywhere, Arthur Morgan has never been more certain that _God_ has it out for him. If there were ever a hell more suited to him it would be Valentine. This cesspool of a town where he finds himself wiping dirt out of the angry red split in his cheek as people mosey about as if nothing happened at all. 

He indignantly watches the laborious drag of that giant brute across the street and propped up by the hitching post in front of Smithfield's. It takes three men alone to conquer such a quest;This Tommy feller is nearly three-hundred pounds walking, but _five_ -hundred as dead weight. They all pat at his shoulders and offer sympathies for when he eventually wakes up to a world of pain before making their way once more into the saloon.

Life goes on in this livestock town _—_ mud is mud and shit is, well, _shit_. 

Arthur wipes what grime hasn't been washed away by the rain from his face with the back of a bloodied hand, wincing as it passes over the cut high on his cheek. He is covered in Valentine, in the black street that runs straight through its center and if it weren't for the light sprinkling falling from dark grey clouds it would've dried him in a stiff cast.

So far, he doesn't much like this town, but Arthur doesn't much like _any_ town these days.

It's a deep unrest churning in his gut; careful glances over his shoulder and skin burning at the feel of eyes upon it. Too many people. Too many bounty posters. Too many guns and chances for making a greater mess of things. Riding into town, even for short resupply trips, feels too much like a slow march towards a thick rope 'round his neck.

With dusk painting the town a brilliant orange, he wanders here and there, finds himself leaning over the wooden rails at the auction yard as the rain relaxes into fat, sporadic drops. The pigs and sheep have already been sold off, cattle next on the docket, horses to end the day. Buyers have trickled in and out, dwindling into a few small clusters of men consulting each other, eyeing prime heads and comparing notes.

Arthur's familiar with a bit of the soft chattering; once he'd briefly considered 'honest' work on a ranch _—_ back when _his boy_ came into this world an angry, screaming bundle of red skin and dark hair. That inquiry was nipped in the bud rather quickly, and lasted long enough to learn only a few terms. 

A _'3-in-1'_ means a momma cow has gone and gotten herself pregnant again so she, her calf, and the other yet-to-be-born come as a package deal. He supposes that's good if the chorus of gentle nods around the paddock are anything to go by. _'Broken mouth'_ means she's already started losin' her teeth. Arthur understands that you want a _smooth mouth_ if you plan to get good use out of a heifer. If a bull's _'tipped'_ , there's less chance of him goring you on account of the end of his horn being sawed off. Now that, that's good for everyone 'far as he's concerned. 

A long, slow drag of smoke fills his lungs as he flicks the embers from his cigarette disinterestedly.

His walk around the auction yard is unhurried, very much aware of how his lonely form catches a few brief stares. Arthur's heavy boots squelch in the muck at every movement, one aching hand tucked deep into his pocket to hide how it clenches and bleeds a slow ooze like the heaviness settled over his shoulders. 

By the red barn with 'Worth Stable' painted in big white letters, he hears a softer muttering that's kept even closer to the lips than that of those gruff cowboys he passed.

It hisses low and ends in a warm hum that curls up in the pit of his stomach. Rich and honeyed, the fond tutting is met with pleased whinnying which is quickly hushed with a chiding cluck.

Arthur ducks into the dry stable, immediately hit with the sweet tang of fresh hay. He likes the smell, smiles nostalgically at the memories it evokes. Him, laying in tall grass with Boadicea, legs crossed at the ankle and head gently rising and falling with the mare's deep breaths as he draws a meadow at sunset. There's a stillness, a contentedness that he knows is fleeting but has the time to stop and enjoy without a five-thousand dollar bounty hanging over him. He misses her something fierce, hopes wherever she is, she doesn't go 'round telling all those secrets shared under the cover of lazy afternoons.

He spoke to her like that too, far too cloying than fit him and with a fondness he didn't much extend to people nowadays. 

With warm streaks of a golden sunset revealing swirling dust as delicate and slow as the first flurries of winter, Arthur feels some of that fleeting content among the gentle clink of new horseshoes and quiet huffs pushed from large nostrils. It's the first time in months he's felt even the smallest shred of safety. He doesn't glance cautiously over his shoulder and his hands rest limp at his sides rather than over his gun belt. 

"You're just a _baby_ , ain't ya, boy? They never even gave you a proper chance."

He hears it much clearer now, coming hidden from a stall all the way at the end of the row. The melancholia he hadn't caught before pulls at the warmth settled in his chest. It's a slight throatiness, a gasping glum laced in with affection—sounds an awful lot like loss. Arthur's familiar with it, _intimately so_. 

"But I just _knew_ you weren't nothing but a big softie. Not as mean as you want 'em to think, huh?" 

When curiosity overwhelms his avoidance of human interaction, Arthur can't help but peer into the stall. He's not sure what he was expecting. A young stable boy, brushing down some ill-tempered nag. By the pitch, maybe a farrier woman wearing dirty breeches and boots too big for her that she proudly inherited from her daddy. Certainly not _this_. 

The 'baby' is actually a hulking mass of a dark bay Andalusian that stands at about 17 hands tall and gleams blood red under the right light.

His head absolutely dwarves the straw bergére hat fastened atop a low raven chignon with pale green ribbon pressed against its front. He's got a nasty look in his big, brown eyes when Arthur's reflected in it—the man's not so sure he ain't mean. It's softened with the silky caress of white gloves with lace trimming at the wrists.

Arthur's eyes follow the gentle arm clad in the leg-o-mutton sleeves of a frilly shirtwaist, down the elegant slope of her neck and proper posture. She's neatly tucked into an indigo prairie skirt printed with little white flowers, tragically caked in mud at the hem. Barring that last little detail, she's stepped right out of some, he doesn't know what, _a catalog_ maybe. A deep part of himself—shameful and maybe desperate—takes in the pretty clothes and the tidy dark hair and thinks it's _Mary, wrapped in all the fineries of a proper lady._

Wishful thinking.

Arthur dares to clear his throat out of some pathetic need to know for sure it _isn't_ her and, of course, causes a great mess in its wake. 'Big softie' bays wildly, rearing up on those powerful hindquarters and quick to avoid catching death at the end of his hooves, she falls back frightened and unfortunately, right into the wheelbarrow full of shit behind her.

It's the hysterical, sobbing laughter that expels the image of Mary from his jackrabbiting heart. 

Horrified and ashamed, Arthur stares with wide eyes as she just lays there— _in shit_ —dripping in tears, but grinning a rueful laugh. He rushes forward, stuttering a thousand incoherent apologies, and reaches out to help her but she just bats his hands away and continues to stare up at the rafters.

Assuredly _**not**_ Mary.

Not while content to lay in horse crap and cackling perhaps the ugliest laugh Arthur has ever had the displeasure of hearing. It sputters and wheezes, chest heaving to suck in fat gulps of stale air and the only thing he can liken it to is the cringing scream of a spooked horse. _How fitting_. 

"You bastard!" she shouts in that half-cry, half-laugh, "You scared him."

Arthur can't help but think he's _more_ terrified. That this horse is feeling any fear greater than him in this moment, regarding such a finely dressed woman so _unladylike_ and on the brink of insanity, is a ridiculous notion.

A strangled sound of utter confusion wrestles itself from his throat as she slumps further into the barrow with a repulsive squelch, arms limply hanging from the sides, legs kicking back and forth like a child. She's sighing with a goofy smile, all tenseness fading away from her form and Arthur's mind races with the odd dilemma of whether or not the image is one for his journal. 

"Do you think your fiancée will still marry me?"

It's a softer laugh this time—not as ugly, but just as empty.

"Ma'am?" Arthur questions, brows pulled together tightly. She's surely not speaking to him, so then _who?_

He attempts again to offer a helping hand, not exactly wanting to hold a conversation with someone sitting in a wheelbarrow of manure. To his surprise, she first considerately removes the soiled glove before placing a clean and soft hand in his. It's hard for Arthur to grasp the process she uses to choose which decorums to maintain. 

Slowly, unwilling to acknowledge that the bit of resistance he encounters in pulling her up is the suction of thick shit, Arthur gets her upright and thanks God the mess was contained to her back. He can't help, facing her now, how his lips part slightly, mouth open dumbly.

It's the eyes. 

Hooded and shadowed under low set brows, a muddied green that's itching red and casted in watery glass. Tired and sad, heavy despite how she's still laughing. Arthur remembers the way her voice had sounded under the cover of solitude, when it was raw with loss that he could understand.

Without thinking he begins, "I'm sorry, I-"

"Do you reckon I should buy him?" she tramples his attempt at an apology, looking past his tense shoulders to the stallion only just calming.

Arthur furrows his brows again, _what a strange woman._ He lets out an exasperated huff, hands falling to rest now on his gun-belt, "He almost killed you."

"But he's very pretty," she debates, smiling appreciatively at just how soft his mane looks in the fading light, "and he's strong, big, probably too big to race. Could sire a few good foals..."

It dawns on Arthur as she shrugs half-heartedly, that she's here for the upcoming horse auction, using that lingo he only barely familiarized himself with. She's a well-to-do rancher's... _something—_ madwoman, he thinks. Perhaps she's _too_ comfortable around horses to recognize what a menace the Andalusian is, or too confident they'd be able to break the bastard. Either way he can't imagine there being much use on a ranch for a horse like him. 

"Not much a market for Andalusians in the South of West Elizabeth, but up North, maybe... I've been looking for a new one of my _own_ anyway, can't keep using yours..." she's not talking to him again. The strange woman shuffles past him closer to the stall again, and Arthur catches a terrible whiff of that which paints her back. 

"Ma'am, don't be foolish now, horse like that'll throw yo-"

"Foolish?" she huffs incredulously and like she's been snapped out of a haze, he recognizes how her pupils dilate back to normal, some semblance of sanity returning to her. "I'm foolish, you _brute?"_

The anger that he'd expected from the start levels him full force then. Arthur dares a glance into those eyes which before had trapped him in his own melancholia, now rage fiercely into him, scorching him not unlike how whiskey runs warmth through his innards. He clenches his raw and aching fists again, shoving them back into his pockets as the familiar heaviness settles on his shoulders once more. 

"You're the one spooked him. We were doing just fine before _you_ came along!" 

He's still surprised she's not brought up her ruined clothes, nor the stench stuck to her back. She's angry about the horse, the no good stallion that anyone with half-a-brain wouldn't buy. It gives him pause, still he rises to meet her anger. 

"All I done was clear my throat! Horse can't handle even that, he's no good," he can't help but defend himself, even if before he was offering his apologies.

Her face goes a terrible shade of red, nose scrunched up and lip curled at him, " _You're_ no good!"

She shoves him backward and Arthur can hardly believe it when the back of his knees catch and fold him back into the wheelbarrow. The force of his significantly larger body sends the mess up to splatter the barn walls, the front of her pristine white shirtwaist, and his furious mug. 

Something terrible churns in his gut as her ugly horse laugh returns in full force, echoed by a chorus of joyful whinnying from every filled stall. 

He has never thought to strangle a woman, but for her he just might make exception. Such fineries for such an _awful_ woman. 

Arthur peels himself from the barrow with a terrifying scowl, angrily wiping the manure from his face. He _hates_ Valentine. This is his punishment for all his misdeeds, he's sure of it; towns of mud that smell of shit and demon women with horse laughs and terribly sad eyes. 

"Look here, _Miss_ -"

_"Winn!"_

All three heads—his, hers, and that _stupid_ horse—whip around to face the voice calling out from beyond the barn doors. Arthur, chest heaving with fury and skin vibrating the need to do something about the frustration in him that's been mounting for months now, notes her sharp intake of breath. How she takes a measured step to widen the space between them that he hadn't even noticed previously close. Head bowed, strong chin tucked over a low hanging silver locket, she glances up at him only once and he feels himself settle slightly when he sees the remorse in it. Before he knows it, she rushes out with a flurry of apologies that he's unsure who it's directed at. A large part of him suspects the stallion. 

Arthur sticks around a bit, long enough to see that she does buy that horse much to the burly man with her's chagrin.

It paces around the pen nervously, reacts poorly to the slightest touch by the auction handlers and she still pays one-hundred-sixty dollars. She does so with a great big smile on her face that's tinged again with that sadness he cannot place on a woman with such wealth and spirit. 

That night, he writes of how much he despises Valentine, of wheelbarrows of shit and deep loss that does strange things to people. 


	2. Love, and Other Foolish Pursuits

There is a heaviness in him that’s been there for quite some time now and Arthur isn’t sure it’ll ever leave. 

A dull blooming in the center of his chest that whittles rudely at the bones caging something scarred over with tar, he _aches_ all the time. His heart beats slow, lethargically without a care whether or not it stops. It is old and battered and he has given so much of it already that it no longer pumps blood through him _for him_ —always for others. No matter the hurt in him, Arthur forces that wretched organ to beat for Dutch and the gang, for little Jack Marston who has no choice in the matter of a life of crime or honesty. He carries a weight for everyone else; the issue of himself hasn’t concerned Arthur Morgan for years. 

He supposes that’s why he agreed to help Mary Linton. Arthur loves her still, even in scorn, so he gets her young Jamie back despite how it dredges up a well of unhappiness in him.

It would be easier on his weak, old man’s heart to have ridden away with no prospects of ever seeing her again. He’s dreading now, returning to her having been a fool clinging to the empty memory of their love by running her errands like a dog. Having to look upon her face which is still so goddamn beautiful it hurts, as it beams up at him in gratitude, it might just kill him. Almost _had_ before. 

It’s surely his mind playing tricks on him, but Arthur thinks he sees the clouds form a fluffy, white turtle shell spinning out on its back. 

No doubt, it has everything to do with the young man sitting behind him, dressed in white with a similar figure of green emblazoned across his chest. Seeing those _‘Chelonians’_ has him out of sorts and grateful that he, once again, chose others above himself. If something bad had happened to Jamie on account of his pigheadedness, well, he’d hardly forgive himself, much less expect Mary to.

Arthur’s grip on the reins tighten with the unmistakable sound of twisting leather as he notes the care he still has for her forgiveness. _A fool indeed._

They slow up on the path leading closer to Valentine, with the afternoon high in the sky and beating down harshly on their backs. Jamie prattles on about the late Barry Linton—Arthur cares little to hear of it. So when an ear-splitting screaming cuts through the dipping curves of the hills just east of them, it’s almost a godsend.

Jamie grips Arthur’s shoulder curiously as he pulls back the reins to halt them to a stop. A flock of larks fly over a scattering of bushes as the awful raucous persists. It’s a braying neigh of vehement disagreement; they recognize it as an unruly horse and, if the shouts it drowns out are anything to go by, an exasperated rider. 

"Arthur," Jamie stares wide-eyed in the direction of the sound, "should we go see what's going on?"

He scratches the scruff of his beard in the palm of his calloused, shoulders sagging with a weighty sigh. Arthur doesn't much want to prolong this excursion with Jamie. He's eager to get the boy back to Mary and then disappear for a day and a half to stew and brood before it becomes too long and he's needed back at camp.

Chin tucked down and hat hanging low over his brow, Arthur shakes his head, "It ain't none of our business, Jamie."

"But, _Arthur,_ " and goddammit if he doesn't sound just like his sister in that chiding tone that clangs around in his head, "someone could be in trouble!"

As if to further prove his point, another distressed bray sends nearby deer galloping away. Arthur bites the inside of his cheek with a defeated sigh, brushing away the incessant tapping of Jamie's urging hand at his side.

"Alright'," he concedes in a low grumble, "We'll just take a quick look, but then we gotta be on our way. Yer sister's waitin' for ya."

Walking them over the hill, he really shouldn't have been so surprised to see the bobbing head of a dark giant. It should only be fitting that a rider with such a discordant laugh would have a horse with an equally jarring whinny.

The dark bay Andalusian stamps his hooves on the ground wildly in his upset, thick midnight mane flying up behind him with every toss of the head, nostrils flared furiously. He's angry or scared or worried; Arthur can't discern the flurry of conflicting emotions emanating from the horse—that too is fitting considerin' his rider. 

Jamie slides off the back of Arthur's own mount in a rush, fretting pathetically over the woman that seems to only ever be thrown in a mess. His fuss, like Arthur's was, is swatted away with just the smallest twinge of annoyance. Jamie tries again, like Arthur did, anyway. 

"Stop your fussing, boy, it wasn't your fault!" she shouts, bubbling laughter that, _by the grace of God_ , is kept down soft and controlled. 

She's clearly not talking to Jamie, the way she pushes him out of the way and approaches the unruly mountain of a horse with raised hands.

It's that strange woman from the auction yard, this time in a fresh puddle, barefoot and clear of any tears. The front of her skirt is hitched up above the ankle, revealing how mud squelches between her toes with every step, flexing in the wet earth that gets beneath her nails.

Commandingly, she grabs the horse's bridle, not rough but hard enough to calm him into relinquishing control. The stallion nickers in slight protest, before conceding to the guiding force of her hand. She pulls their foreheads together, pressing them tightly with both hands stroking either side of his face. Surprisingly, his eyes flutter shut, long lashes flattening over his smooth coat. The familiar hushing and sweet whispers descend over the valley, wiping away all trace of the terrible disturbance. 

"It was that mean snake, coming out of nowhere and spooking you. You don't have to feel so bad about it."

Arthur eyes the scene from a distance, hands fidgeting over his gun-belt buckle. It's so tender, he almost does believe the big bastard is as soft as she'd said he was. 

"Miss, are you sure you're alright? What happened?" Jamie interrupts. 

"Oh you'd like her," she continues patting his thick neck, seemingly ignoring Jamie's inquiry, "She'd think you were real handsome, but I'm sorry to say she would never have the courage to ride ya."

"I told ya he'd throw you," Arthur calls out from his spot just over the ridge, pulling a cigarette from his satchel and using the bottom of his boot to light the match. 

All things gentle and sweet leave her as she rounds on him, _"You!"_

"Him?" Jamie asks, glancing warily between her and Arthur. 

"Yeah... _me_ ," the outlaw confirms with a small, gruff nod. Arthur rubs at his scruff with a sour expression, taking in a long drag of smoke and holds it for three or four _slow_ beats before exhaling it out. 

She scoffs, dusting off what she can from the soiled remains of those nice clothes that speak to her wealth as a rancher's something. A particularly labored effort is focused on rubbing away mud from the opal pin fastening a plum colored scarf around her neck. With a freshly licked thumb and concentrated tongue peeking out from between her pursed lips, she cleans it as best she can, staring at its shimmering face with a hollowness in her eyes. Clearly, it means something to her.

"Miss," Jamie tries again, hands out in a placating sort of gesture in an attempt to calm her as if she were a spooked mare herself, "My name's Jamie Gillis and this here is Arthur Mor-"

"Don't remember asking..." she turns on the heels of her bare feet, approaching the beast as the boy stumbles over his words.

Arthur huffs, stomping his cigarette into the ground, "Now, the boy's just trying to be polite. No need for yer unpleasantness-"

Pulling herself up on the saddle of the stallion, who seems now to have never been bothered at all, she levels him with a glare that just looks downright ridiculous. There are twigs and leaves all caught up in her worn braid and the smallest scarlet cut high on her cheek and Arthur wonders if he should be cursed with meeting her again, what other unfortunate situation the fates might cook up. 

"Don't remember caring."

The pair of them watch dumbly as she so foolishly kicks her inexperienced mount into a gallop, kicking up mud in wake of his powerful hooves. The cheek on her. No care for any sense of decorum or kindness that she much easily extends to horses than people.

 _Christ_ , there really isn't one good thing about his time in Valentine. Even the most well-to-do of women the town had to offer were still graceless and prone to leaving a bad taste in his mouth. Mary doesn't belong there; he needs to get her Jamie out of this wretched cattle town soon. 

"Arthur, we can't just let her go off on her own. What if her horse bucks her again?"

Jamie's protest is wearing thin on Arthur's patience. He likes the boy well enough—is the only Gillis never did any wrong to him—but he can only entertain him for so long. It has been an awful day for his tar scarred heart.

Incredulous, Arthur throws his hands up in the air once he's righted himself up in his saddle, "You mean to tell me, after all that, you want to help that woman?"

Jamie nods and damn that sweet little boy that never learned better than to keep himself selfish and wary of strangers. Arthur has no doubt it contributed a fair amount to his falling in with the Chelonians.

He shakes it out of his head, "No, Jamie. Now, I'm getting you home to Mary and I don't mean no offense in saying so, but I hope to never see you again—least not in these circumstances."

They happen on her once more along the road to Valentine, close enough to town that he can see the silhouette of the train station before the setting sun. The glum that paints her blue among the golden orange light of dusk, it's a more familiar color for him. Again, she has been thrown from that giant monster of a horse and it's pathetic, really, how she still scrambles to comfort him. 

"He's a good horse, I promise, " she sniffs, and the shine of sadness in her eyes is back again without trace of laughter. "He just... needs a little more time to get there than most others." Arthur believes her. 

"Miss?" is Jamie's soft worry, still eager to offer her kindness. 

Wisely, she takes him by the reins this time, making to walk him through town on foot. Arthur unconsciously slows his own horse beside her.

She looks up at him, sadness briefly ebbing again, regret taking its place, "I'm very sorry for having been so rude. It's been an _off_ few months."

Jamie waves his hand in dismissal, as if to say _don't even trouble yourself over it_. Arthur tries not to stare too hard at the way her bare feet kick at the ground and how her brows screw together in somber thought. 

"I just came back up here to Valentine yesterday so I could bring him home." A dirt stained sleeve comes up to wipe away the nascent snot just barely falling from her nose, smudging a streak of taupe on the corner of her mouth. She smiles wryly, red rimmed eyes staring straight ahead, unwilling to show them any more of her melancholia, "I knew he's not been trained properly yet, but... I can't keep riding the horse I got now, she's my sister's."

It's a surprise to all four of them, her horse included, when Arthur hums low and even, "He's been treated badly 'fore, you can tell it. Likes you plenty, just not sure he can trust ya yet." 

"My sister's-" she stops to correct herself at the slip, " _My_ fiancée told me it was a foolish pursuit, among some of my other... _ambitions_. But I've been 'round horses my whole life, I know he has it in him."

Her smile softens, smaller but more genuine. A terrible, awful part of him even thinks it's pretty.

"Nothing some loving and sugar-cubes can't solve."

"What's his name?” Jamie asks, lips curving into a little smile of his own.

"I haven't a name for him yet," she pats the steed's neck thoughtfully, lips twisted together. "It took Don Quixote four days to name Rocinante. He thought a horse's name is an important thing, it must be as esteemed as its knight if stories are going to be written of them."

As they pull up to the train station, Arthur searches for Mary's dark head of hair and pretty, _clean_ skirts. He figures she must be waiting for them inside when he comes up disappointingly short. His heartbeat quickens in a nervousness he hasn't felt in years over it.

Jamie slides off the back of the horse, still in conversation with the strange woman. Arthur follows suit, eager to move things along. 

"So, what's _your_ name then? If you're meaning to say you're the 'esteemed' knight," Jamie asks with a short chuckle.

"Regrettably, Winnifred. Though, _Winn_ is better." 

It hangs in the air for a moment, both men internally rolling it over their tongues. Arthur notes with a heavy sigh, the way Jamie blushes. The boy must not be able to help getting himself into all manner of trouble if he has gone sweet on this Winn. _Lord, give him strength_. 

"Well, as always, it has been... real _interesting_ , Winn. But Jamie and I really do need to get goin'." Arthur's abrupt and curt. It cuts some weird place inside of him to see that soft smile disappear. 

Winn nods graciously at Jamie, toes flexing in the mud once more.

"You have shown me more kindness than I deserve, Mr. Gillis, I'm afraid. It was nice meeting you," it is said softly and seriously. She passes over Arthur's adieu with much less words or glances, "Mr. Moore."

Jamie doesn't get the chance to offer any romantic words that might fan the tiny flickering flame in his cheeks and stirring in his gut. Nor does Arthur get to question her calling him by the wrong name.

Winn gently tugs on the nameless horse's reins, leading them further into town without a look back. 

"What a strange woman," Arthur huffs, hands sternly on his hips.

"I know," is Jamie's dreamy reply.

What that boy sees in her other than a pretty face and the small sliver of smooth skin at her ankles, Arthur doesn't rightly understand. He doesn't question it all the same, that would be more time wasted in this godforsaken town. 

With night fallen over Valentine, it looks nicer than exposed under the harsh sun. Soft light emanates from the few places still open at this later hour; the saloon is alive with a drunken glee and the stables are filled with the soft snorting of tired mounts.

The pinto Tennessee Walker he'd named Joanie is in need of a clipping and Arthur's bone tired, dreading the ride back to camp. He makes to stay in the hotel in town and leave before first light. A bath and time away from Uncle's snores sounded heavenly after the day he's had. 

The shop bell of the gunsmith's rings harsh in his ear down the quiet street through town. 

Lazily glancing up from beneath the brim of his hat, Arthur catches sight of Winn strolling out with a big grin and a repeater hanging from her back. The seconds-ago-lit-cigarette falls from his lips and lands with a hiss butt end into a particularly wet section of mud. Though he falters, she approaches him directly and with a mischievous look upon her face that he already wants no part of.

Arthur opens his mouth to stop her before she has the chance to say whatever it is that's resting on the tip of her sharp little tongue, but it cut short as she points a Schofield revolver at him that he hadn't even seen in her hand. Winn makes a show of squinting her eyes and sticking her tongue out in concentration as she sets her sights on him, head tilted ever so slightly.

His breath catches in the back of his throat and the remaining smoke there forces him to cough and splutter.

"What the hell-" he chokes on spit, "do you think yer-" sucks in a large gulp of air, "doing, Crazy!"

Winn smiles with her teeth then, and asks the question he will soon come to wish she never did: _"Will you teach me how to shoot, Mr. Moore?"_


	3. A Name Carved in Lead

Thirty six years on this earth, Arthur knows what vengeful eyes look like.

He's seen angry and desperate—the kind of grief leads you to kill a man in cold blood. Knows the pain behind those eyes, the shaking anger and loss that can't help spill over and fester into something ugly. He's had it pointed down the barrel of a gun and at him, held it in the blue depths of his own soul. It's called frontier justice, and in this life, you get used to dealing and dodging it. 

At some point or another, he's seen even the kindest of eyes grow sick and black with it. Terrible thing, really; only ends in more pain than to start with. 

Miss Winn has something strange in her eyes. 

Arthur can't exactly call it by the same name, but with one eye squeezed shut and the pink swipe of her tongue along her top lip, there's a forceful determination he's not seen in anyone less than vindictive. She looks ridiculous, two-handed hold and dainty wrists struggling to keep a too heavy revolver up, yet some part of him still fears that mad glint in her mossy green. 

It's just outside of Valentine, up by Citadel Rock with the rising sun to his back, that he spots a wind-blown skirt and too big straw hat that flops more to one side than the other. Morning sun peaks through the gaps in her hat's weaving, glittering gold like the broken glass at her feet, crunching under her, _thank God_ , boots. 

That big monstrosity she calls a horse lazily picks at the patch of grass beside her, looks world more relaxed and more comfortable in his own skin than just the few days since Arthur had last seen him.

They both do, actually. 

Winn is eerily calm in comparison to any of her previous forms despite that flash of red resolve, pays Arthur little mind as he climbs the hill towards her against his better judgement. Part of him thinks he'd be best to leave well enough alone, but there's this nagging tug of curiosity in his gut every time he sees her. Four times now, this makes, seeing her dressed the part but looking wholly unladylike. Some might call it _fate_ , especially considering all that Arthur's sure he's due.

He shakes his head and sighs heavily as she sets another bottle atop the fallen log, muttering a soft wind through high Heartland rocks, low hum under her breath.

She steps back a good ten paces before raising her revolver in that same, ill-advised hold. Two hands clasped tightly around the smooth pearl grip, Winn holds that ostentatious piece of blued steel and golden engravings all lopsided—jus' like her hat.

The barrel falls further than Arthur thinks she intends it to be and she flexes her fingers along the cool metal cylinder. 

"No, don't hold it so close to the cylinder. You'll hurt yer hands."

Arthur notes how her body responds to his voice, a rigidness taking hold on her shoulders, head held just that bit higher than before. Winn pulls the hammer back, adjusting the placement of her feet in the dirt without giving him a glance. Then, with the subtlest of movements that Arthur only just barely catches, she begrudgingly slides her hands down the frame of the revolver so that her hands wrap around the grip and only the grip. 

Winn's index finger stutters over the trigger, eyes shifting to cast him a brief annoyed look. She squeezes her left eye shut in that too tight, silly way that Arthur can't help the amused hum bubbling over in his chest. How it rumbles down his throat and into his stomach when she barks at him to shut up, and warms him to the tips of his toes. 

The crack of her shot is succeeded by an unmistakable shattering that scatters the empty brown glass bottle. It smells strongly like bourbon for a moment, before the wind takes it away and replaces it with something delicate and floral.

Honeysuckle, Arthur recognizes it from when he was a boy.

He feels the sun on his neck, remembers picking those little yellow flowers and slowly pulling the stem from it until the tiniest drop of nectar greeted his eager smile. Sweetness across his lips as he collected a dozen or so of them so that he might feel joy again later in the evening—when Pa had too much to drink and started his acrid recounting of his youth, or better yet, when he was gone off to get up to some trouble again. 

It flows from the slope of Winn's neck into Arthur's nostrils and head that aches from trying to make sense of her and such strangeness. And _Christ_ , her smile, he hasn't seen it like this before. 

Winn inelegantly trips over random stones and her own feet as she skips towards the log, beaming with pride. It's big and bright, with nice straight teeth that speak of the means from which she all but fell out of the sky and into a barrow of shit. Gone away is that terrible glint in her eyes that settled discomfort in his gut, she looks happy for the first time. Unfettered from any other unpleasantness, no sadness or anger.

It's her prettiest, much to Arthur's chagrin. 

With him in her sights, it takes a moment before she's again peeling it back to reveal another layer of confusing. Her brows scrunch together and lips purse into a hard line of irritation, revolver hanging limply at her side.

Winn rolls her shoulders and grumbles, "Thank you, Mr. Moore, but I seem to remember you refusin' to help me on account of me being 'the most ridiculous woman you've ever met' and that 'no one shoulda even sold me a gun in the first place'."

"C'mon now, lady like you shouldn't have need of a gun, Miss," Arthur nearly winces at that gentle, apologetic tone. "'Ain't goin' to teach you to shoot 'less it's absolutely necessary."

"And how would you know it's not?" she asks bitterly, setting another bottle up on the log.

Arthur's eyes narrow on her for a long moment, worrying his bottom lip at that. Truth is, he doesn't and he never really thought to ask when she'd accosted him in the streets of Valentine. He just brushed it aside as another happening of her strangeness, can't imagine what she'd need to learn to shoot for. Maybe doesn't want to—got enough things on his mind these days, he's not about to take her on as another charge. _Like he hasn't already_. 

"Why do you keep calling me 'Mr. Moore'?" he clears his throat, opting to avoid it altogether. 

Winn's brows furrow deeper, taking twenty paces or so back that places her just at where the hill starts to slope down. She busies herself with lining up the shot and replies nonchalantly, "That's your name, isn't it?"

"No..."

Squints, swipes her tongue across the top lip in unconscious routine, "Well, Mr. Gillis introduced you as such. Arthur Moore, he said."

Arthur scoffs, finally piecing it together and—at the risk of ruining their longest, mostly amicable conversation—mutters under his breath, "No, you interrupted Jamie 'fore he could even finish."

He holds back the bitter _'starry-eyed fool'_ bit on the tip of his tongue. 

Her second shot rings out with just as much force, and sure enough is followed by a satisfying shatter. Winn looks up to the sky, past fluffy white tufts and a blinding sun high in the sky of late morning, as if Arthur were trying her. There's that laughter in the cage of his chest again that is only just kept at bay. 

"Then, pray tell, what is your name?"

Arthur remains silent on the matter, jumping forward to cut her off as her feet make to move, setting a line of bottles up for her. Some clear, some brown or green, some tall and skinny or short and stout. He takes a step back and gestures to them, "Since you've need of it... try with just one hand."

She takes a moment to think, he can tell by the flash of it across her face right before it slowly crawls into a small smile of victory. As if she knew that he'd break down and help her just as she'd asked. Arthur is reminded once again how dumb he truly is.

"Like an outlaw, Mr. Mor-" Winn twists her lips back and forth, "Mr. Morris?"

Something terrible grips at his chest, and it's strangely akin to fear. Her smile isn't knowing or teasing, he knows in truth she's just being silly as seems to be Winn's M.O. but it strikes that split second of worry into him. Flashes of a thousand vengeful eyes and smoking pistols and blood—it was exactly like that, like an outlaw spilling violence from the barrel of his gun and on the run from the law.

Arthur coughs to wipe away the panic, "Not exactly. And it's Callahan."

"No, that can't be it," she refutes with a resolute shake of her head, tightening her hold around the revolver to manage with just one hand. "I am mostly certain it began with an 'M' and not a 'C'... Mr. Morton?"

The mossy eye on Arthur's side of her crinkles shut, drawing a hard line between her dark brows. A flash of pink catches between those pearly whites as her tongue took to the familiar motions of swiping over her cupid's bow. She looks so ridiculous, but even now, he can see how it creeps back into her form. This crawling red haze of anger and grief. Lips smacking from the suddenly dry expanse of her vengeance-thirsty mouth pulled taut.

There is the thought, the nagging in the back of his wayward mind to press on Winn's so-called necessity that leads her here; on the outskirts of Valentine, still, spraying glass with hot lead and making funny faces. It is odd and surely sends the coil in his stomach twisting sharply. 

"Only _mostly_ certain?" He chooses again, to ignore the rattling in his stomach—how hungry it growls deprived of clarity from this strange woman. 

Winn's lips twinge at its corners, pressing into full, sun-kissed cheeks. Arthur feels spent, breathing labored from the whiplash her mischievous glint brings him, flushing away the madness. Perhaps figuring out Winn would be a hopeless endeavor anyway. 

"Do you think Moran?" she bobs her head from side to side in deliberation, lips twisting and nose twitching. There's a fond lilt in her voice, a joking familiarity that makes him feel like an intruder in a private conversation in that way she does. "No, can't be... Morales? How ridiculous, he would not be called Martinez."

Arthur leans backwards and shares a glance with her beast of a horse who only huffs a tired breath and resumes grazing. The big, unruly bastard swallows down bright yellow dandelions and dew-fresh patch of tussock, flicking his tail disinterestedly. He wonders if she's given him a name yet, as the stallion nickers softly in content. 

"Callahan," he repeats flatly, hiding from the beating sun low under his hat. Arthur rests his hands on each side of his gun belt buckle, pinky running back and forth along the smooth leather absent-mindedly. He cocks his head to the side, grunting in disapproval of her stance as she resumes aim, "Lock your wrist up, but keep your elbow just a little." 

Winn begrudgingly follows his directions, and the small corrections thereafter that have one leg dropped back, shoulders leaning forward and relaxing with a slow breath.

They spend the rest of the time in silence, Arthur kicking at pebbled rock and dirt only daring small glances as she unloads the chamber with a brilliant crack of glass that blends into a rainbow and shimmers like crystals when the sun hits just right. Of the four rounds left in her revolver, she makes only two with a grimacing smile from how her wrist aches. It is still too big and bright for Arthur to look at too long. 

He’s got things to do, wouldn’t be headed towards town if it weren’t so. There’s people counting on him, placing their trust in his hands big and small to keep them afloat and yet, he stays with her for an hour more. Until the afternoon sun is high up in the sky and she has unloaded and reloaded the cylinder five times with Arthur’s direction, emptying the ammunition box in her saddle bag. When there are no more bottles to shoot, pink exhaustion floods her smile-sore cheeks and prickles the bridge of her freckled nose. 

Glass cracks beneath his feet as they drag back and forth in the dust, sat up on the log and eyeing Winn’s thoughtful expression as she stands a ways away, skirt blowing gently in the wind. Her fingers are stained with brown-black oil, burnt in different places as she fumbles with the hammer and rear sights. As Arthur dictated, she half cocks the Schofield and gently slides the sights back, still jumping as the barrel jumps down and hot casings fly from the cylinder. 

Distantly, Arthur can hear the train coming to station in Valentine, its screeching brakes and chiming whistle muffled in the low humming wind up Twin Stack Pass. His eyes fall in that direction unconsciously, past Winn’s suddenly aimless form and twiddling thumbs with no targets and gun safely tucked back into the waist of her skirt. 

“You won’t ask, but I know you’re curious, Mr. Callahan.” 

It sounds so much like defeat, her calling him by the false name he supplied. How she gives in to what was unspoken, offers him a line into the mystery he refuses to touch, but can’t help but look into from afar—which, granted, isn’t very far despite his best efforts.

"Don't flatter yourself," Arthur bristles, shoulders tense and refusing to look at her. It’s harsher than he’s been on her in a good while. In fact, he hasn’t voiced much of a truly unkind word or tone to her at all this day, barring his comment on her interrupting Jamie. They’ve been fairly nice, _of sorts_. 

His abrupt comment only bothers Winn as much as it takes to bow her head. Part of him despises himself that much more. 

The last bullet of the box slides between her fingers, lead catching light with a bright flash. The small pads of her fingertips run over its smooth curves, tapping softly over the rounded tip. Winn worries her bottom lip red, brows furrowed with a dark look crossing her features, shadowed beneath that big straw hat. 

“My father’s a rancher, third largest east of New Austin,” she speaks softly, towards the ground as she fiddles with the bullet. “That’s 275 head in our care. We’re supposed to give them the best life they can—make sure the grass is good, keep them happy and protected—in the short time they’ve. But sometimes… sometimes _beasts_ come to prey on weaker cattle, on newborn calves.”

Winn’s hands are small and dainty, every bit they should as a well-to-do rancher’s daughter but curled into a fist around the bullet, it’s huge. Larger than his own and likely to crush whatever stands in its way.

She meets Arthur’s confused gaze then, “One of the hands, Jim Connors goes out every once in a while and he… does what needs to be done. At least that’s what Pa calls it.”

Half of her face is obscured by an unwavering hand, fingers wound tight around the bullet held at eye level between the two of them. The other side catches a reflected gleam bouncing off the round’s silvery body, light drawing black pupils small and filling her green irises with gold.

It’s a sight he won’t soon forget, of even greater note than Winn slumped in a wheelbarrow of horse shit or her little toes dancing in the mud. It’ll keep him awake in those few hours of sleep that feel more of a chore than anything he does in the waking hours, burnt behind his eyes and fingers itching to draw. To write about what embers of worry it stokes in him, the fanning to a warm core of something strangely akin to fondness. If he cared for her, it might’ve truly scared him.

“For the man that shot my sister in cold blood,” Winn gestures to the bullet, mouth set in a hard line, a name carved in lead on the tip of her tongue. “By the new year I’ll have tracked him and…”

“And... you what? You'll kill him?” It’s almost enraged, how he bites it out and means to cut her down in such an endeavor. Arthur’s seized by something he can’t claim to be any part of him, something so foreign and wholly unwelcome that he’ll agonize over it later. What a _fool_ she is, she rivals even him.

“I aim to get him to confess and turn him into the proper authorities.”

He’s risen now, face red from the sun and his sudden rush of anger, towards her. Towards this stupid woman— _girl_ , really—that does the stupidest of things and will surely get herself killed sooner rather than later. Arthur hasn’t the patience for her. “And if he doesn’t?”

Winn raises her chin, unwilling to wilt like the delicate flower Arthur imagines someone of her station should be. She meets his gaze with a fire of her own, despite how he means to scare her in hopes she’ll go home and grieve as any normal sister should. 

“Then I’ll do what needs to be done.”

Less angry, but still tight in his throat, Arthur looks away from her and watches a pair of riders leaving the limits of Valentine, “Why the new year? That’s not too far off and tracking someone in the winter, ‘specially someone as-” he clears his throat, careful in his approach and unwilling to spook her, “as _differently experienced_ as yourself isn’t easy.”

“My late sister’s fiancée, his own father owns a sizable track of land on the southern edge of the ranch,” she says plainly. Arthur nods to follow and rifles through the strange conversations to make sense of it all, but she beats him to the conclusion. “Daddy’s looking to expand to 350 head in the spring, I’m set to marry Robert in February.”

 _Christ_. 

Arthur sighs, bowing his head. He's never had a sibling of his own, at least not by blood, he can't begin to understand her pain. Of all the people he's lost, his mother gone when he was too young to remember and his father who is better off in this world dead, the closest to her grief he had was Annabelle perhaps. Even then, he guesses it couldn't really measure. But he's seen and known this path she's so stubbornly set in cement; it ends only in more suffering. In those quick blinking moments, when the air still hangs too heavy between them with her confession, Arthur sees her lively eyes dead and blank, no satisfaction but another rancher's daughter painted red in her own blood. It makes him feel sick. 

“Now, I can’t in good conscience-”

“I should hate to be a burden on your conscience, Mr. Callahan," Winn cuts him off abruptly, and he is certain now he has said something wrong as seems to be common. "It may serve us both well then, to forget having ever met, to alleviate your conscience, of course.”

That big, dark Andalusian nickers louder than before as she shoves her gun into the saddle bag at his hind. He curls his giant head around to regard her, almost protective as his broad neck covers her partially from Arthur's view. Big, glossy black eyes glare at Arthur as she gruffly shoves a but into the stirrup of a fine saddle and hauls herself up into it, one hand pressed flat atop her head to keep the hat in place. 

Winn spares Arthur one last, burning glance like her horse—a look of finality. She means it, and for all his cruel thinking otherwise, Arthur isn't actually sure such a notion pleases him.

Odd and frustrating and completely off her rocker, but... _four times_ now he has encountered her and not once during it has he really thought much of his own troubles given how clearly plagued she is. And when he's not with her, he thinks about her constantly, though not often in so many kind terms. 

"Dammit, Winn, wait." He grumbles, grabbing hold of the reins clutched tightly in her hands, small again without the dark weight of a bullet in it. Her horse neighs in upset, pulling away from Arthur as he fights to keep her there. "I said wait! I'll-" _He'll what?_ He doesn't even know himself before the words leave his lips. "I'll help you. 'Least for a little while. Let me help you."

Terrible thing, really. It'll end poorly, he knows it will. Can't help but do it anyway. 


End file.
